


Time Travel and Troll Grubs (the upsetting bits)

by Corvid_Knight



Series: Grubbabies [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Adoption, Found Family, Gen, Kids, M/M, my tumblr is knight-of-heart-and-art, this is such a fun AU yall, troll grubs - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 02:52:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13090890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: This is a companion tomy other workand contains any chapters in which grubs get hurt, basically.





	1. Nonomi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Followup to [this.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12836631/chapters/29375508)

You're rinsing off four of the slimy grubs when Dave starts calling for you. These four are pretty much the last couple who are still sick; the lowerblooded babies got over it faster than the highbloods, but even your violet grubs are only oozing a little at this point, little enough that you could probably get by with wiping them down with a damp washcloth. But hey, they _love_ baths, and you love watching them purr and squeal in the tub. 

But Dave's not-quite yelling your name from the other room now, and usually you'd just shout back and ask what he wanted, but he sounds weird. Quiet even though he's yelling. Like he's freaking out, which is not exactly something unusual—he still has problems, you both know it and know how to handle when things happen at this point—except it's really more normal for him to just sit down and go more-or-less nonverbal and wait for you to come check on him, realize he's not okay. 

Well. Unless he's hurt himself. Unless he needs you right fucking now. 

"Fuck," you mutter, and turn the water off. The grubs chitter in disapproval, and you click back at them, taking a second to pat each one's wet hair as you make sure the drain's clear. They'll be fine alone in here for a minute, so you leave them to slide around in the tub while you go find out what set Dave off. 

He sounded like he was in the living room, but you don't see him at first. You can hear him, though, little choked sounds that aren't quite words. "Dave?" Couch. He's behind the couch. "Dave, what's wrong, are you—" 

You step around the couch, see him, and can't fucking speak for a moment. 

Dave looks up at you, nothing but pure fear and desperation on his face. You know his jeans are grey faded from black, but they're so drenched in dark green slime that you can't tell that right now. So is the floor, right here—he's kneeling in a puddle, more fluid than you would've thought one little grub could produce, especially the tiny grub he's cradling. Nonomi. 

Grubs aren't supposed to be that fucking still. 

" _Karkat,_ " Dave says, and it's only the terrified, breathless quality of his voice that breaks your paralysis enough that you can kneel next to him. "Karkat, they—I don't—they—" 

"Shh, Dave. Shh." Nonomi squeaks weakly and tries to curl up when you touch them. That they move at all is a relief, but you're still so fucking afraid. You try to think back to the last time you were the one to feed them with the others, the last time you had them in the tub, and the best you can come up with is the night before last. Oh, _fuck._ "It's okay, they're going to be fine, let me see..." 

Dave doesn't want to let go, but he lets you take the grub out of his arms, choking back a sob as he looks down at the amount of slime on them. "I couldn't—couldn't find them, Kat, I did a count, checked everyone was good and th-they—they _weren't—_ " 

"Shhh, I know. It's going to be okay, Dave." You keep shooshing him and the grub both, even though Nonomi seems to be past the point of getting upset about what's happening to them. You need both hands to keep them steady—that's how slippery with the sick-slime they are—but you wish you had a free hand to pap Dave with. "They'll be fine, they—" 

You can't honestly say that, though, you realize as Nonomi whimpers a little. They're too clammy for a midblood, and they're not even shivering so there's either something fucked up with their body's ability to regulate its temperature or (worse) they're just too weak for that energy expenditure. 

Fuck, you're scared. 

But so is Dave, and it's worse for him, you can tell. And he's looking at you, hands twisting in his lap, and you know that he _needs_ you to finish your sentence, be the one who fixes shit this time. 

"Bath," you say to him, and that's all he needs—he nods, getting to his feet and flash-stepping towards the bathroom. You wince when he does that—he's covered in slime and out of practice with that shit, he's going to slip and hurt himself—but there's no way you're calling him on it. You stand up more slowly, trying not to jostle the grub in your arms as you follow Dave. 

Slime slides down your arms, onto your shirt, drips on the floor, and oh god you're going to cry. Don't you dare. Don't you _dare,_ Karkat. Don't scare Dave worse. 

Dave has all the grubs out of the tub and wrapped in towels when you step into the bathroom, and he's already trying to get the temperature of the water running into the tub right as you kneel down next to him. His hands are shaking too badly for him to be able to turn the knobs properly. 

The water's close enough to right, though, and you lower Nonomi into it and nudge Dave's hands aside so he won't accidentally bump it any hotter or colder. "Dave, it's okay, they're going to be okay, calm down—" 

Dave looks at you. Looks at Nonomi, who's still trying to curl up tighter even as they float in the shallow water. Looks back at you, and even though he doesn't say anything you still wince, because you don't want to be a liar but you're horribly afraid you just might be, this time. 

And maybe half an hour later—Dave would know exactly how much time elapsed, but you don't—it becomes apparent that that fear's more than justified. Nonomi hasn't moved at all for what seems like a long time, and they're completely limp when you finally lift them out of the water, eyes not opening as you stroke their face. 

There's no movement. Not any. Not even the tiny rise and fall of breathing. 

"No," Dave whispers beside you, as you gently lay the grub down on the floor. "Please, no, no, _no,_ please, no, _please_..." 

"Dave, come here." He doesn't move, just shaking his head and keeping up his soft, pleading litany, and you have to pull him over to lean on you so you can wrap your arms around him, hide your face in his white hair as he shakes and grips at your shirt and just keeps begging for your baby to not be dead. "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm so sorry..." 

He freezes when you say that, going silent for a moment. Then he makes a sound you've never heard before, one that reminds you of some animal from your home planet that's been mortally wounded and is smart enough to know it. It's an awful sound, one that you never wanted to hear from him, and you hold onto him tighter, rocking a little and trying to shoosh him through your own tears as he starts sobbing into your shirt. 

Eventually, you start to be able to make out words through his sobs. "My fault, Kat—" 

" _No._ Shh." It's your fault, you knew Nonomi was weaker than the rest of the grubs, you shouldn't've assumed they'd be fine. You should have remembered. "It's not your fault, if anything it's mine...grubs die, Dave. We knew that when we started. We—" 

Dave groans and twists up two handfuls of your sweater hard enough that it pulls painfully against your neck, but you barely notice. You're remembering something, right now, Dave's remembered voice echoing in your head even as he cries into your shirt. 

_"We've got a shitton of gods on our side, man—it's gonna take a major calamity to hurt our kids in any way that lasts."_

Oh. Oh, fuck. Holy fucking—

Dave clings to you when you let him go for a second so you can reach down and pull his shades out of the neckline of his shirt, settling them on your face and cooing reassuringly to him as you figure out the messenger setup again. 

turntechGodhead [TG] started pestering gutsyGumshoe [GG] 

TG: JANE?  
TG: JANE WE NEED YOU TO COME OVER, RIGHT NOW  
TG: PLEASE

GG: Dave?

TG: NO, IT'S KARKAT, DAVE'S HAVING A FUCKING BREAKDOWN AND I'M REALLY FUCKING CLOSE TO ONE.  
TG: THE GRUBS GOT SICK, ALMOST ALL OF THEM GOT BETTER, BUT NONOMI...  
TG: FUCK.  
TG: THEY'RE DEAD, OKAY, THEY'RE DEAD AND I  
TG: I CAN'T FUCKING DO THIS.  
TG: JANE, PLEASE.

GG: Oh my god.  
GG: I'm coming, Karkat. It'll be all right. 

gutsyGumshoe [GG] logged off 

When you pull the shades off, Dave is blinking up at you in wounded incomprehension, tears still dripping down his face. God, you can't stand this. 

He closes his eyes when you reach up to touch his face, shuddering as you lean forward to kiss his forehead. "Karkat...?" 

"Jane's coming," you tell him gently, answering his gasp with a purring shoosh. "She'll fix this, Nonomi might be a little upset but they'll be all right, Dave, I promise you that." 

"Oh, my god." Dave goes limp against you, shaking his head and grabbing at your hands as you try to gather him up in your arms again. "Oh, _god,_ Kat..." 

"I know, Dave. I know." 

You have to carry him into the other room, leaving him on the couch for a minute so you can bring Nonomi's body in. Five or six of the other grubs are curled up in and around Dave's lap when you come back, all of them chirring in concern and trying to scramble up enough to be able to nuzzle against his face. He's petting them, stroking their hair and bodies, but he's not even trying to reassure them with words, and he's not picking them up...although that might be because of how badly his hands are trembling. You lay your towel-swaddled bundle down, and pull Dave and the grubs all into your lap, murmuring to them all in Alternian even though you know Dave still barely understands it. 

He relaxes, a little. He doesn't stop shaking. 

For once Jane doesn't knock, and she doesn't say hello either. Just glances at you, and scoops up the bundle on the coffee table, carefully unwrapping it with hands that are already crackling with light. She drops the towel, cradles Nonomi to her chest, and you want to watch but her hands are so bright your eyes are burning, so you're looking down at Dave when Nonomi screeches in righteous indignation. 

They squirm violently enough that Jane loses her grip on them, but that's okay because Dave's already out of your arms and your lap, catching them before they hit the floor and cuddling them as he starts to cry _again_. That's understandable. As you sit down on the floor next to him, you're crying too. In relief.


	2. Delphi

You're. A grub. A cerulean grub who didn't have the good fortune to be picked up by a lusus yet. A too-big-for-your-blood-caste wriggler who didn't have enough sense to scurry deeper into some crevice when a bored highblood wandered into the caverns and no jade was around to shoo him out. 

Mistake. Maybe the last one you'll get to make. 

He's got you by one horn now, dangling you a few feet off the ground and showing sharp sharp teeth in something you can't call a smile. There's blue splatters on the stone beneath you. The cuts he's carved into your skin and carapace hurt, but the wrenching pressure on your head from your horn having to support your full weight hurts _more._ You're trying to squeak at him, chitter and squeal and beg without words for him to _stop,_ put you _down,_ please please _please—_

You can't breathe for the pain, though. All you can do is twist and writhe, your little legs searching for support that just isn't there. He's had you up here _forever._ His delighted grin hasn't changed and he'll _never_ put you down. You're never going to find your lusus because you...

...you are going to die now. He'll kill you, maybe take your body out of the caves and eat you—you know that adult trolls do that sometimes—or maybe he'll just drop you and leave you to be found or not-found by a jade. In the latter case case you might _still_ be eaten, if an unattached lusus or a particularly starved wriggler comes across you first. You don't want to be eaten, you don't want to _die,_ you want to be chosen and taken from the caves and be given a name—

( _your name is Delphi_ ) 

The thought intrudes just as the highblood lets go of you, and you lose track of it as you try to curl and roll with the impact. It's not as far as you thought to the floor, though, and you only have enough time to tuck your head under to the precise angle needed for one of your horns to be caught between your full weight and the unyielding stone. 

When you land, it _crunches._

You thought you didn't have enough breath left to make a sound, but you scream. You scream so loud it hurts your throat and makes your own ears ring. The highblood kicks at you—maybe to get you to shut up?—and when you instinctively try to squirm away from his foot he shoves you again, hard enough that you can't keep from uncurling and looking up at him.

The last thing you see clearly is his blade-tipped whip coming down at your face. Then it slices into your skin, across your _eyes,_ and everything is blurry and blue and so _very_ painful. 

There is a point where you hurt enough that you cannot possibly hurt more. The cut across your eyes isn't that point, unfortunately, but after a couple more blows you reach it. He still doesn't stop, though. You're not sure how long he keeps hitting you, but eventually there's another, angrily scolding voice that's familiar to you—one of the jade caretakers. Whatever she says to the highblood, it's enough to make him growl and retreat. 

The jade scoops you up, making soothing noises. You can't see anything, but you still try to curl against her—she'll make you better, she _will,_ she _has_ to—but she just spends a minute running her fingers along your cuts and raising you up to check your eyes, then huffs and adjusts her grip on you. 

You can sense the change in her attitude toward you when she does that. The shift from you being a valuable grub to you being a broken useless object. There's no more soothing. No more cuddling. She just carries you through to somewhere, you don't know where, and sets you down.

And leaves you. 

Even though you're chirruping as loudly as you can for her to come back. You'd be shrieking if you could. 

You can't. 

You _can't._

You're going to—

"Delphi?" Dave's quiet voice and his gentle hands on your shoulders ( _you have shoulders, see, you're not a grub anymore, see, you—well, you can't see, but you can live with that_ ) are what you need to pull out of the dream. He's just a pale blur against the dark as you open your damaged eyes, but you can feel the concern in him even if you can't see it. "Del—come here. C'mere. It's okay..." 

Maybe you were crying even before you woke up, but now it's worse; as Dave sits down and pulls you onto his lap you're sobbing, wrapping your arms around his neck and clinging to him probably tighter than you should. You can't control the slurred words that force their way between your sobs, but you hear them. "Don' leave me, Dave-Dave, don', please, 'm sorry, _please_..."

He shushes you, pulling you up close and rocking you with a motion that actually makes the tears come faster for a second: the jades would rock particularly upset grubs like this, back in the caves. You're not a grub anymore, though, you remind yourself. Not in the caves. Not. You're _not._ You're here. Dave is here. Dave won't leave you. 

When your sobs taper off to whimpers, Dave asks gently, "Why're you on the couch instead of sleeping with the others, sweetheart?"

"...dreams." You sniffle and nuzzle your face deeper into the wet spot you've made on his shirt. "Got dreams. I remember even if the others don', I don' _want_ them to remember..." You don't want to remember either, but you do, _everything,_ always, since you squirmed your way out of your egg and a jadeblood picked you up and wiped the slime off you and set you down by food. The others don't remember like that, they barely even remember when they were grubs at all.

Except sometimes Lielin can pick up your bad dreams and somehow spread them to the others, and then they all _do_ remember for a little bit. So when you have a nightmare, you move to the couch, out of the safe warm pile, until you have a few nights without more nightmares. 

But you don't know how to explain that to Dave, other than telling him, "Bad dreams, Dave-Dave," and holding on a little tighter. 

"I know, babe. They suck." He makes a sound that's like a smoother version of Kat-Kat's purring— _humming,_ that's the word. It helps you calm down enough to relax a little, ease up on your deathgrip on his shirt. "You should go back and sleep with the others—"

" _No._ Gives them bad dreams too." You won't sleep at all, if it's a choice between that and making the others remember the bad things. 

"Okay. Okay. Then you're coming to sleep with Kat and me." 

"But..." You know you make sounds in your sleep, especially when you're having nightmares. "What if I wake you up?" 

"Then we wake up and make sure you're okay, and we all go back to sleep." Dave shifts how he's holding you so he can stand up, making a reassuring sound when you instinctively tighten your arms around his neck. "It's okay, Delphi. You're supposed to come to me or Karkat when you have bad dreams, you don't have to try and handle it yourself. It's better when you have help, trust me." 

So... "You have nightmares too?" you ask

"Mhm. Sometimes. Kat, move _over,_ we need a lil' more room right now..." Dave sets you down on the edge of the bed, carefully getting loose of your arms, and smacks at the large and reassuringly warm bulk of Karkat's shoulder. You help with that, giggling as Karkat huffs and rolls over to pull you onto his chest. 

"Delphi," he says, and snorts as you settle on top of him and run your fingers across his face. He's smiling. "Hey. You shouldn't be up." 

"They weren't," Dave murmurs as he settles himself down next to Karkat and pulls you down to nestle between the two of them. "Bad dreams." 

"Well, fuck." You can't tell whether it's Dave or Karkat that kisses the smoothed-down stump of your broken horn, but the soft pressure is almost as reassuring as the fact that you're in such a safe place. "I'm sorry." 

"I'm okay." It's true. You're warm, you're cuddled between two people who love you and won't leave you, you're _safe._ "Sleepy." 

It's Dave who laughs, you think. "Go to sleep," he says softly.

And you do. It's easy. Not scary. Not when you're with them.


End file.
